


Shadowed

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Category: Dark Shadows (1966), Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Community: spn_flashfic, Crossover, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-30
Updated: 2008-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam remembered the old mansion from back when Dad had detoured them through the small town in Maine to investigate a couple of unsolved murders, complete with disappearing bodies and unexplained sightings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowed

**Author's Note:**

> Right. So, I might have been addicted to [_Dark Shadows_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Shadows) and [Barnabas Collins](http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jmkkfGGu4Qk&feature=related) (youtube link) at a very young and impressionable age (which makes the whole Angel thing so predictable, right?) And I started this off wanting it to be about how John met Barnabas, and I might have squealed loud enough to scare the dog when I tracked down the plot where Barnabas time-traveled forward to 1995, but when I started writing, it turned into something a tiny bit different. 
> 
> Thanks to withdiamonds for enabling like crazy and without_me for cleaning up my wordiness.

"You're sure about this," Sam said, eyeing the old mansion with as much professional detachment as he could dig up. He remembered it from back when Dad had detoured them through the small town in Maine to investigate a couple of unsolved murders, complete with disappearing bodies and unexplained sightings. Mostly what he remembered was the tiny, rock-strewn beach below the house and the freezing cold water. Until he got to California, it was the only beach he ever saw. He'd been twelve that summer, old enough that no one was pretending he didn't know what was going on, but still young enough not to be allowed to do anything but sit in the hotel room and be bored.

"We're here." Dean shrugged. "Seems kinda stupid not to check it out."

There were a dozen things Sam could say to that, but Dean had that shuttered, closed-down look, the one that meant Sam could talk himself hoarse and it wouldn't make any difference, the one that had been showing up more often than not since they'd left Bobby's. He still thought about arguing--Dean _wasn't_ a hundred percent yet no matter how much he wanted to pretend otherwise--but it was already late afternoon and the light was fading fast. They probably weren't going to make it to the next small town before it was pitch black; they might as well stay here in Collinsport and check things out. He nodded and Dean took them back to town to find someplace to crash for the night.

"Doesn't look like much has been happening since we were here before," Sam said, once he got online and skimmed the local paper for news of the weird. "But Dad didn't leave any notes about what it was then so I don't--"

"Ghosts," Dean said. "A fucking swarm of them." He was cleaning the guns, not because they needed it, Sam knew, but because _he_ needed something to do with his hands. "Seriously. Like, seven or eight."

"Okay," Sam said.

"The whole family was nuts, I think. Dying out in creative ways."

"Yeah?" Sam added the note to the page in the journal. It was mostly his own fault; after a lifetime of complaining about the sheer _noise_ that traveling with Dean usually entailed, the non-stop chatter and music, he found the new, quieter mode unnerving. Skimming Dad's journal and quoting some of the odder bits while Dean drove meant at least some interaction, and if Dean occasionally looked at Sam like he was crazy, it was more than balanced out by the times Dean would fill in the notes with a story.

"And they have their own cemetery. Family plot. A couple of the bodies were buried in town but the rest were all up on that damned cliff," Dean said. "Couldn't get near it."

"So... Dad just left?" Sam didn't really mean for it to come out quite the way it did, but Dean only shrugged.

"I dunno, man." He wiped down the barrel of his favorite shotgun with a clean rag and put it down on the sheet he'd spread on the floor. "He went up there alone the last night we were here, wouldn't let me go help."

"I remember," Sam said, not mentioning the part about how Dean had sent him to bed at midnight and then spent the night sitting by the window, keeping watch. "We left the next day."

"He was... quiet, when he got back," Dean said. "Not pissed off or worn out or anything, just, I dunno. Thoughtful?" He stopped talking again, but it wasn't to shut out the world, so Sam let it be and kept looking.

"There's some stuff about delinquent taxes a few years ago. They almost put the property up for auction, but a distant cousin or something showed up and took care of it." That was it, for the most part. There was a mention or two in the society page that the house might be opened up again, but that clearly hadn't happened. "So, what's the plan?"

"I don't know," Dean said, quietly. "Dad hadn't been digging--he wasn't dirty or sweaty--and nothing jumped him or anything, but..." He gathered all the cleaning supplies, the cloths and gun oil, and packed them neatly in the battered cardboard box they lived in before he looked up. "I don't know why he left with half a dozen ghosts still out there."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Not normal behavior, for sure."

"So let's check it out," Dean said, and Sam didn't have any reason why they shouldn't.

*

The private lane that led up to the house was too long for Sam to call it a driveway and too rutted for Dean to even consider subjecting the car to it, so they parked just off the main road and loaded up the knapsacks. Dean had repacked the trunk with the same careful attention he'd lavished on cleaning the guns, but Sam knew better than to mention it. He took the shotgun Dean handed him and made sure he had plenty of spare shells and the journal and fell in step next to Dean.

It was about a mile up to the house; lots of twists and turns and a pretty steady incline. Dean set a good pace, enough to get Sam's heart pumping, but Dean kept it up easily and Sam took the hint in the one sidelong glance Dean shot him as they came out of the trees and into the clearing at the top of the cliff--yes, Dean was getting stronger every day. That didn't mean Sam wasn't going to keep an eye on him, but he thought that went without saying.

"Main house is straight ahead," Dean said, keeping his voice low so it wouldn't carry. The moon was out, waning just past full and bright enough to make the flashlights unnecessary. "There's another, older house around that bend, and the cemetery's over by the edge of the cliff."

"Everything looks pretty calm," Sam said. An oppressive quiet hung over the clearing. Sam couldn't hear any normal night sounds, no crickets or insects or even the rustling of the overgrown grass and shrubs. The sound of the waves hitting the rocks at the base of the cliff was muted, too. "You want to hit the cemetery first?"

Dean shook his head. "Dad never wrote down the names of who he thought the ghosts might be--even if we get in the mausoleum, we'd be shooting blind." He turned slowly, surveying the property. "Let's hit the old house first. It was kind of abandoned when we were here before, probably easier to get in and make sure there's nothing there, cross it off the list."

They kept to the edge of the clearing, moving as quietly as possible in the tall grass and brambles until they were across from the smaller building, and then sprinted across the open ground and ducked into the shadows near the front door. The lock was old and ornate and fairly useless; they were inside in less than a minute, which, Sam thought later, was about the last time things went the way he expected for the rest of the night.

*

The furniture and most of the decorative paneling were covered over with sheets and dust lay thick on the floor, everywhere but for a scuffed line of footprints in and out of the front parlor, clearly visible in the beams from their flashlights. Dean started for it immediately, shifting from the salt-loaded shotgun to the new Colt Bobby had given him just before they'd left.

"Aw, hell," Dean said, stopping dead in the door. Sam got there a second later and could only agree--ghosts were one thing, but an open coffin, especially one that looked like it came from the 18th or 19th Century and still showed signs of having been chained shut, was something else entirely. "Zombies or vampires?"

Something flickered on the edge of Sam's vision, once, twice; when he caught it a third time, he spun and came face to face with a distinguished, dark-haired man, smiling just enough that Sam could see the elongated incisors. "Vampires," Sam sighed.

"And me without my machete," Dean muttered. They backed slowly into the parlor, followed step-by-step by the still-smiling vampire.

"Machete?" the vampire asked, his voice as cultured as his appearance. "Surely that would be a trifle excessive for the present situation?"

"You tell me," Dean said. There were a couple of windows on the far side of the room, covered with heavy velvet drapes. If the vampire attacked, Sam thought they might be able to get out that way. Dean still held the Colt; Sam knew it was loaded with consecrated iron. He had the matching gun tucked into the back of his jeans. It wouldn't stop a vampire, but it might give them a couple of seconds.

"I see no need for anything so rash, despite you two being present in my home, without my invitation." It stopped two steps inside the door, shaking its head. "It's been quite some time since anyone has braved this estate's reputation so far as to enter. Especially at night."

"And what happened the last time someone was so rash?" Sam asked. He hadn't found anything suspicious in his research--no odd deaths or missing persons, but he might have missed something.

"We spoke," the vampire answered. "He understood my concerns." It smiled again. "This is my home, gentlemen. It was once a beautiful estate, alive and vibrant. Something happened--I do not know what--and I arrived to find my family dead or disgraced and no one to tell me why."

"It's been like this for a while," Dean said, his voice still guarded.

"Yes," the vampire agreed. "I discovered this... situation over a decade ago. I've tried every means possible to discover what could have done this to my family."

"You mean, your nest." Dean's voice sharpened and Sam shifted his weight, ready to move if he had to.

"No," the vampire growled. "I mean, my _family_. My kin. The children of my brothers and their children and friends. Something evil held them in thrall and destroyed them and I _will_ have my vengeance." He drew in a deep breath, straightening the cuffs on his dress shirt and suit and inclining his head in a formal, almost archaic manner. "Do not interfere with that intent, gentlemen."

The vampire held Dean's stare evenly, the tension in the room tightening, second by second, and then turned, deliberately giving them the chance to attack as it walked to a small table placed to the side of the doorway.

"Brandy?" it asked, choosing a bottle from the tarnished tray. "I'm afraid the glassware has not weathered the years well, but we only serve the finest here at Collinwood. A few more years should not have adversely affected this vintage."

It turned and smiled again, with no sign of fangs. "Come, gentlemen," it said, a bit impatiently. "You did not come here seeking my kind--I am neither blind nor stupid, nor, I'm quite certain, are you. You carry no weapons for that type of fight, because nothing would have told you you might face it. I pose no danger for the people of this town. You know it as well as I do."

"All I know is that you could be covering your tracks real well," Dean said. "And you shouldn't assume that we aren't ready for this fight." He twisted as he spoke, the knife he kept at the small of his back flashing in his hand. Sam swore as he opened up a long, shallow cut on the inside of his forearm, smearing his blood on the flat of the knife. "Dead man's blood," Dean said, flipping the knife around so it was ready to throw. "Seeing as I was gone for a while, I figure I'm a walking fountain of it."

"I stand corrected," the vampire said, his eyes never leaving the knife.

"Dean--" Sam started, but Dean cut him off.

"You're right, though," Dean said, watching the vampire as closely as it was watching him. "We came here looking for ghosts, the ones that were all over the place a while back. Couple of deaths then."

"Yes."

"Not vampire-related." Dean shot a look at Sam, one that finished his sentence with _because there is no way Dad missed that_. Sam shrugged; now really wasn't the time to get into Dad and everything.

"They were killed to keep me from learning what they knew of this situation, but otherwise you are correct." The vampire's voice was perfectly calm on the surface, but Sam heard the strain beneath.

"We danced around this enough?" Dean asked.

"We could continue, if you wish." The vampire inclined his head. Dean snorted.

"Yeah, well, I'm assuming you have a previous engagement, like, when the sun comes up, and I'm getting tired of bleeding here, so let's just cut to the chase. Thirteen years ago, our dad came up here to take care of those ghosts."

"Ahhhh." The vampire smiled again, every inch the gentleman. "Mr. Winchester. My last visitor."

"So," Sam said. "You talked. And Dad... I'm guessing the two of you bonded over the vengeance thing."

"Your father was very helpful. Very knowledgeable. We were able to contain the spirits, keep them from harming any other living beings while I continued to seek the information I needed."

"And the subject of you, y'know, living off human blood didn't come up," Dean said.

"It usually doesn't," the vampire said. "Even among those, like yourselves, who know the truth. I am no longer at the mercy of those urges, even if I do still seek my rest in less than ordinary ways."

"And now?" Dean asked. "You're hanging around because..."

"Now, I have one last chance to put things right, undo the harm done to my family."

Dean flipped Sam the knife and unrolled his sleeve, hissing a little as he pressed down on the cut. "Undo, huh?" He looked at Sam, not really smiling. "That'd be a nice one to have in the bag of tricks."

"It's not without risks and ramifications," the vampire said.

"What isn't?" Dean said, shrugging. "Look, we're here because I never saw my dad leave anything like this unfinished. So, is this gonna get messy or are we still in the no-harm, no-foul zone?"

"I have no quarrel with you," the vampire answered, after a thoughtful moment.

"Cool," Dean said. "We'll just be going then."

The vampire stepped back, leading them to the front door, as though they were guests and the house wasn't falling down around them. "I'm curious, though..." It gestured toward the knife Sam still held, raising one hand, palm up. Sam hesitated, then traced the knife lightly over its wrist, enough to break the skin. "Interesting," the vampire said after a moment. "Not quite what I expected, but most definitely _not_ dead man's blood."

"Huh," Dean said, but Sam was watching him and he saw some of the tension Dean had been carrying for too long to remember go out of his face and shoulders. He pushed the door open and started down the steps.

"Thanks," Sam said. "I think I owe you one, Mr....?"

"Collins," the vampire said. "Barnabas Collins, of Collinwood, Mr. Winchester."

"Good luck with the curse, Mr. Collins," Sam said, and followed Dean back down to the car.

***  
***


End file.
